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Every October the coastal Chinese township of Qianxi in Zhejiang Province hosts a three day long dog-eating festival during which around 15,000 dogs are killed and eaten. This carnival-like an event dates back more than 600 years and is intended to commemorate a military victory during the Ming Dynasty. In advance of the military action, the army slaughtered all the dogs in Qianxi so their barks would not alert the town people to the assault. Following their successful takeover of the township the victors feasted on dog meat and thus the annual tradition was established. However a recent government ban may have ended this
In recent years, it seems that vendors at the annual fair adopted the practice of slaughtering and skinning the dogs, in public after customers objected to buying refrigerated, rather than fresh, dog meat. Historically, the eating dog meat has been commonplace in China. It is referred to as 'fragrant meat' and some Chinese people believe it is reputedly good for the health. This may stem from the general lack of meat available over many years. Popular dishes include dog soup, dog with tofu and dog hot pot.
It appears that the practice of eating dogs was not the main concern of critics of this annual event, but rather the way the dogs were being kept and the methods being used to slaughter them. Visitors were shocked to see live dogs densely crowded into wire cages, packed so tightly that they often damaged one another just trying to stand up and move around.
One animal welfare worker, Wang Lingyi from Hangzhou said: "People actually enjoyed killing them in different ways at the festival. I've seen the dogs being stabbed, strangled and even beaten unconscious and then thrown into boiling water. If the dogs regained consciousness in the extremely hot water, they struggled, but the stall holders kept pushing them down and plucking their fur."
One Chinese blogger who posted gruesome pictures of the cruelty noted that "On the days of the festival, the streets were washed with blood while the air was filled with dogs' desperate howls."
Despite the fact that until recently the ownership of a dog as a pet was banned as an unacceptable bourgeois habit, dog ownership has become increasingly popular with China's growing middle class. It is estimated that in Zhejiang Province the number of pet dogs is measured in the hundreds of thousands. Some of the members of the new Chinese middle-class admit that they had eaten dog meat years ago, but now they claim that they are repulsed by the practice. One local resident, who owns a golden retriever said, "I have eaten dog meat, once when I was young. But now I could never eat dog meat. When others eat dog meat I also tell them they shouldn't. When you really understand dogs you could never eat their meat. You could never be so cruel to your most loyal friend."
There are other reasons why dogs are now being more commonly looked at as pets, rather than food. One that is often mentioned is the large number of migrant workers who are separated from their families and former communities and now experience chronic loneliness. Dogs are filling the emotional and social void for some of these isolated people. Similarly, with the one child per family rule still in effect in the country, many couples experience a sort of "empty nest syndrome" when their only offspring grows up and moves out of the family home. Having a pet dog then serves to fulfill the need for nurturing that many couples feel in the absence of children in the house.
The Xinhua News Agency, which is the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China, reported that the issue of dog-eating was put to the vote on Weibo.com, which it the Chinese version of Twitter. This social media site boasts 50 million active users each month. Twelve thousand people voted on this issue and 91 percent said "no" to the carnival. Other social media sites were also used and there was the overwhelming majority of people condemned the dog-eating carnival. In the end over 100,000 people sent protest messages to the government and there were even street demonstrations against the festival and the practice of dog-eating in general. The Chinese government heeded the voices of their citizens and the festival was officially banned for this year and possibly for good.
However the ban of this dog-eating event was not universally received as a good thing. A government spokesman for Zhejiang Province told local media: "Some villagers argued that they had emotional attachments to the festival, as it had been passed from generation to generation, while some said it should be listed as the city's cultural heritage."
Dog eating is a common practice in many parts of China, although exact statistics are not available, since the country has an enormous human population the number of dogs being consumed is likely very large. That means that the government's ban of such a large and visible event which featured the eating of canines might signal a shift in the Chinese attitude to dogs in general.
Hopefully, this is the beginning of trend away from such the common practice of eating dogs. Currently the Chinese government is considering legislation that would make eating dogs and cats illegal and they claim that this is part of a response to increased public awareness about issues associated with animal welfare. CNN interviewed Professor Chang Jiwen, one of the people who is campaigning to change the current law and he commented that "A ban on eating dogs would show China has reached a new level of civilization."
Stanley Coren is the author of many books including: Born to Bark, The Modern Dog, Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses? The Pawprints of History, How Dogs Think, How To Speak Dog, Why We Love the Dogs We Do, What Do Dogs Know? The Intelligence of Dogs, Why Does My Dog Act That Way? Understanding Dogs for Dummies, Sleep Thieves, The Left-hander Syndrome
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